Speed Development

How and why to improve your real speed

There's speed work, and then there's speed work. When most runners talk about doing speed work, they mean things like mile repeats at 10K race pace, or a set of fast 200s, or maybe even a 5-mile tempo run. Such workouts, of course, are integral to becoming a faster runner. But they're not really speed work, if by "speed" we mean the fastest you can run for a very short distance. When I talk about speed, I mean your maximal velocity – your top speed – which even world-class sprinters can sustain for no more than 30-40m.

But here's the thing: This type of speed is also integral to being the best distance runner you can be. Improve your basic speed, and you'll run faster in all your races, even the marathon. That's why all the runners I coach, such as 2010 national indoor 3K champion Renee Metivier Baillie and 1:02 half marathoner Brent Vaughn, do regular speed-development workouts. To understand why, let's start by looking more closely at what speed is and isn't.

A Quick Overview of Speed

Speed is not 5K race pace or even mile race pace, let alone 10K or half marathon race pace. A typical miler's workout, such as 20 x 200m at mile pace with 200m jogs, isn't a true speed workout; rather, it's a race-specificity workout that teaches the body to run a certain pace while challenging the anaerobic metabolism. The same is true of workouts you might do on a regular basis, such as 1200m repeats at 5K race pace. That workout is about improving your body's metabolic abilities (its plumbing, in so many words) at race pace. It has nothing to do with developing your basic speed.

Again, by "speed" I mean the top speed you can reach for a very short distance. Why does this matter to you? After all, it's unlikely you'll find yourself crouched in the starting blocks for a 100m race anytime soon.

The reason that your basic speed matters is that it's a window into a broader continuum of paces, i.e., speeds, that you need to run to perform your best. When you improve your basic speed, you become more efficient at the other speeds you need to hit – your repeats at 5K race pace, your tempo runs – to race well. There are lots of reasons why this is so; for most Running Times readers it has to do with coordination.

Coordinated Efforts

Don't think of coordination as patting your head with one hand, rubbing your tummy with the other, all while standing on one leg with your eyes closed. Instead, think of coordination as better communication between the muscle fibers involved in running and the nervous system. If you regularly do specific speed-development work, the result will be obvious to the casual observer – you'll simply look better running.

Speed is, at its essence, an issue of coordination between all of the muscle fibers involved in running and your nervous system. Numerous studies have found that, while VO2 max and lactate threshold are important components of running fitness, the key to running faster is improving running economy, the intersection between your metabolic fitness (i.e., your heart, lungs, mitochondria) and your mechanical ability to move over the ground (i.e., muscles, tendons and the nerves that direct them). Many of the latest advances in the world of running, from Pose Running and footwear like the Vibram Five Fingers to stability training on a Bosu and single-leg lunges, have underlying them this concept of improving a runner's mechanical efficiency. Yet most runners focus only on developing their aerobic fitness and anaerobic fitness, the metabolic components of fitness, and neglect the fact that if you can run more efficiently you'll be able to race faster. Specifically, if at the cellular level you can use a greater percentage of your muscle fibers available to do work, you'll race faster. This is where speed development comes in.